Phillip Schofield’s This Morning career is lying in state on a catafalque and the queue to view it currently runs to 10 miles. Yet still they come. What a testament to the guy’s particular qualities. Then again, when the loathed Hollywood executive Harry Cohn died back in the 1950s and 2,000 people attended his funeral, a comedian remarked: “It only proves what they always say – give the public what they want to see and they’ll come out for it.”
To the perennial snakepit of daytime television, then, with ITV’s morning magazine drawing the rubberneckers on Monday, as former bezzies and co-presenters Phil and Holly Willoughby “battled on” despite reports of a serious rift. Schofield has done hilariously mad things over the past week, like hire crisis management and issue a statement about their amazing friendship and professional partnership. Holly … hasn’t.
Are they really on the rocks? Yes, would seem to be the obvious answer, with many viewers convinced they could feel the tension on Monday’s programme. That said, these daytime shows often have the feel of a hostage video. I can’t see how you would possibly be able to act like you believed in segueing from an item warning about Alzheimer’s to a chicken traybake recipe unless there was some guy standing just off camera drawing a scimitar menacingly across his throat. But we’ll come to show editor Martin Frizell in a minute. The one thing we can all live without hearing any more about is Holly and Phil’s “professionalism” for carrying on. FYI, commentators: most of the country works every day with people they can’t stand, so spare us the medal ceremony for a pair who pull in £730,000 each for doing it only four days a week.
As for why Phil and Holly are on the rocks, who can say? Or rather, who can say in print? For now, a recap of only the barest bones of this saga. Despite being watched by an average of about a million viewers, the stewardship of the This Morning sofa is being written about 30 times more feverishly than the stewardship of less important places like the Foreign Office, and 50 times more feverishly than the fact a former cabinet minister is now on record saying openly that the Conservatives sought to “gerrymander” by insisting on voter ID for elections. Yup, This Morning matters – really matters – and the fact that a story about Holly and Phil was the most read bit of news on the Guardian website for a large part of Monday can only be a testament to that significance. (Needless to say, I have read every word.)
But the plotlines are byzantine and in some cases still obscure. Take just one knotty strand of it all. Friday’s This Morning used to be presented by Eamonn Holmes and his wife Ruth Langsford. Back in December 2019, it was reported that Ruth had made an official complaint about Phil – a stand she was supported in by Phil’s former occasional co-host Amanda Holden, who stated: “I admire anyone who sticks up for themselves as it’s not an easy thing to do. There is a tin opener and a can somewhere, and other people have found the opener.”
Unclear what happened to Ruth’s complaint – but when, soon after, Phil suddenly decided to come out as gay, he did so on a This Morning presented by Ruth and Eamonn, who were then shown hugging him and holding his hand. Holly was in supportive attendance. Yet Holmes now seems quite pleased to see the pair under the hammer. Eamonn presents a breakfast show on GB News, and is not remotely bitter – never is, missy, never is – though Monday found him twinkling: “I think there should have been a special award for Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby for best actors.” Well now. I don’t think we can even begin to get our head round all the angles of that timeline. Forget it, Jake – it’s daytime.
Further highly called-for perspective came courtesy of olden days polo-neck-of-shame wearer Dapper Laughs, who on Monday tweeted a photo of himself staring pensively out of a train window with the caption: “Sat thinking about how ITV dropped me over a joke and Schofield’s still on there.” And a field day too for my favourite future Royal Society fellow, “body language expert” Judi James, who comes straight off a coronation rentaquote bonanza to parse Monday’s This Morning and declare that one moment “gave Phil the body language advantage in what looked like a bravado fight-back, because by the time he turned to Holly her signals of self-diminishing were making her look anxious and sad”. God love Judi. I always order the word salad and am never disappointed.
Backstage gossip from the show also tends towards the scenery-chewing, with editor Martin Frizell reportedly observed forgoing his usual spot in the gallery while the show was on air, to instead sit in the canteen with “a face like thunder”. The Boswell of all this seems to be former breakfast TV side table Dan Wootton, now a GB News presenter and committed prose stylist, who currently starts a new article about Holly and Phil four minutes after finishing the last one. He ended his MailOnline column on Monday with the thunderous verdict on the latest edition of This Morning: “This felt like the daytime TV equivalent of the last days of Rome.”
Mm. Like Dan himself, that line works better as a joke. And, of course, as a passionate student of history, Professor Wootton will know that by some estimates the last days of Rome dragged on for 200 years. Two whole centuries of corruption and catamites and caving to the barbarians at the border. Luckily, ITV doesn’t face such grave problems.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
This June, Marina Hyde will join fellow columnists at three Guardian Live events in Leeds, Brighton and London. Readers can join these events in person and the London event will be livestreamed
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